


Temperament

by naive_wanderer



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Community: fma_fic_contest, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-15
Updated: 2010-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naive_wanderer/pseuds/naive_wanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing Trisha Elric doesn't quite know how to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temperament

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prompt 54, "Anger," at fma_fic_contest. It won first place!

  
It is sudden, as Ed’s temperament ensures – one moment he and Al are kneeling side-by-side on the sitting room floor, scribbling on the paper left out to keep them occupied while Trisha folds laundry; the next, Ed has flung his crayons at the floor, crumpled up his papers in a show of dramatics, and stomped out into the yard. Her disappointed cry of “Ed!” goes unheeded.

Al looks to his mother, his baby-face bright with surprise. Trisha carefully smoothes out one of the crumpled papers – the drawn figures are shaky and elongated (Ed has never been an artist), three crayon smiles on the faces of a woman and two little boys. Beside the children, half-finished as though he’d only realized midway through what he was drawing, the figure of a tall man – face blank, covered in angry sharp scribbles.

She finds Ed sitting in front of the house, glaring over his skinned knees at the tree-swing he hasn’t touched since his father left. He doesn’t stir at her gentle hand on his head; only sniffs once, loudly. She leaves the drawing in her pocket, her private failing.

Her little boy has something stirring in him that she has somehow been missing, an anger that she doesn’t quite know how to soothe, and she should fix it now – but trepidation freezes the words in her throat. He is so young yet, after all; surely she will have plenty of time, when he is older, to make him understand.


End file.
